It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

When is your DPS too low?

Karch has been doing a great job answering his readers questions (why don’t I get questions? Oh yeah, I had one about whether you should stay Fire spec back in TBC. Apart from that they are just questions about help getting $millions out of Nigeria)

Now admittedly if you are only doing 1,000 DPS and you aren’t doing burning crusade content at level 70, then your DPS is too low.

I have seen on various forums that numbers such as 1,200 – 1,400 is acceptable for starting heroics and 1,400 to 1,600 is acceptable for starting Naxx.

So beyond that, how low is too low?

I saw one forum post where the Mage was excluded from guild raids until he hit 3,000 DPS. The problem was that as FFB spec in a mix of heroic and 10 man gear he was so reliant on crits to hit 3k, that he wasn’t in a position to get up to get 3k more reliably.

Using myself as an example, FFB, mix of quest, heroic, 10 & 25 man gear, I am only averaging 2k DPS in a Naxx run. Sure some fights I am notching up. 2.5 or 3k, but then on other fights 1.5 or 1.8!

It probably doesn’t help the the 1st & 2nd meter place winners are pulling 3-4k DPS. There isn’t much left for me to kill when they wind up. Hell sometimes I am at best equal with our Pally tank (though that maybe because he is dual specing Ret and letting our Warrior tank take a few hits).

Maybe it doesn’t help that I am pretty casual. I haven’t even started on Hodir rep for the shoulder enchants, and I am often running to catch up during trash, or just can’t be bothered popping cooldowns.

How/against who do you measure it?

What fights are acceptable measuring posts.

What can you do about it?

How/against who do you measure it?

Do you compare yourself against other Mages?

I am usually the only Mage in our raids, so unlike Pugnacious Priest, I am not in a position to have a meter war with a Magely colleague.

Same Spec?

Even if I do find myself with another Mage, they are often another Spec, so what do I make of the comparison then?

Same gear?
Assuming I have a Mage, that is the same spec, will they be the same gear “level”? If not, how do I compare?

Note: I do wish that tools like WWS allowed you to put in rating for yourself as a search criteria for other raids/toons with same level of gear. So much better than just randomly searching through WWS reports in the hope of finding someone to compare against.

Against other classes?
Back in Kara days, I used to compare myself to our Rogue. He was my benchmark. Just before the great nerfs of TBC, it was 50/50 which of us would be on the top of the meters.

Around that time a shaman mate, with a lot more time than me, leveled and badged out his toon and was either up there or beating both of us.

These days, the only time I come close to either of the is if the rogue forgets his poisons, or they both go AFK (or die… I pray for them to die every fight… Just kidding)

How do you take gear into account?

I have already touched on this, but can you compare a toon in heroic gear with one in 10 man gear?

Compare 10 man gear with 25?

Compare Naxx with Ulduar (or anything in between)?

How would you baseline each of these gear levels?

What fights are acceptable measuring posts?

When you quote or compare your DPS, do you pick the one where you hit 3k through AoE, or 2.5k via tank and spank, or 2k in high movement, or 1.6k because your other utility is more important than your DPS (and should be acknowledged as well)?

Trash or boss, whole run or specific fights?

Do you look at whole run, Trash fights, individual Boss fights, all Boss fights or only Boss kills (WWS will give you all these breakdowns)

I know some trash fights the Rogue has cleared up the trash before I can find my ISHOUlDWIN! button. I read somewhere that in a 20-30 second AoE fight, the Rogue with his AoE daggers will slaughter casters. After the 30 seconds Mages will overtake, because we aren’t dependent on energy.

Some boss fights I am running for my little squishy life, or sucking mana out of the ether while the Rogue just chop chops away. The reverse is also true of course, sometimes the Rogue is bolting from Boss AoE, while I look on and laugh, my biggest concern being whether I can get my hand out of the chip packet in 2.5 seconds.

What can you do?

I figure that there are some old standards to improving performance, as well as some new options. At one point in my playing career I would have said that the first two of the following were the cornerstones to DPS improvement, but now I wonder if a sloppy option 3 is better than a perfect option 1 or 2.

1. Stay alive

In fact from a DPS standpoint, in some fights, your best option maybe to dump your load and die. Big damage over a short period of time = high DPS.

Others are considering moving from Arcane to Fire+TTW specs for the same reason.

But is it want you want to do… Does it really matter?

The dilemma is, if you are a diehard “spec” player (I’m Fire, Krizz is Frost, Larisa is Arcane), do you change your spec just to squeeze that last ounce of DPS out of your toon?

I’m not talking RolePlaying here… I can’t Roleplay my way out of Gnomeragan, I have grown up fire, and base a lot of my identity as a Mage on being Fire (It was hard enough to go *cough* Frost *cough* Fire Bolt.

Am I too old school in loving my Fire, and hesitating to go Arcane just to rock the damage meters?

Should I stay true to my great balls of fire, or consider Dual Spec just another cooldown?

A Mage helping a Tank to Tank?

Completely urelated, but I thought worth giving a plug.

If you are a Mage doing the Hodir encounter, help your tank out by doing insane DPS and going way past their aggro…Just coordinate it with them 1st!

I have found just the opposite. In my day DPS wasn’t actually relevant. Total damage over the course of a fight was key. Warlocks would get some crits, post monster DPS, pull aggro and die.

They then assumed their rightful place in the lower half of the damage meter, and all was right and good in the world.

Nowadays I’m finding people are always on about their DPS. Minimum DPS you need for this, maximum DPS you can do on that. Blah blah I don’t rate it.

Would you rather the warlock who does 4k dps but only 8k damage or the mage who does 2k dps but 100k damage?

Exactly.

What I find is that people use high DPS as an excuse for poor damage.

All this tells me is they spent more time standing around picking their nose than they should have. Or more time dead. Or more time afk. MORE TIME BEING CRAP and less time killing the bad guys.

Sure when they actually got off their ass and did something useful they did lots of damage in a short time frame, but if you take this a bit further, to reach the highest possible DPS the best tactic would be to run in before the tank, fire your biggest nuke, hope it crits, and then die immediately.

wonderful.

Not when I’m tanking you don’t buddy!

re: specs, and are you doing enough damage… The answer is easy.

The answer is NO.

You are not doing enough damage. You are not doing enough DPS. You COULD do more. Nobody is perfect, there is always room for improvement.

If you aren’t trying to improve, you probably just won’t.

So try that new spec. Test those new rotations. Bust every cooldown you can as often as possible. Ride that threat wave. Aggro-dump if you have to, it lets you do more damage!

There is always a way to do more damage! It’s just a matter of always searching for that way.

@Jong: Thanks for that… coming from the Lord of DPS, that is quite a compliment… but then we both look good in skirts…

@zupa: The opposite to the linking of damage meters I assume (ie: the linking of dps meters)
Yes, you are never doing enough… great point, and well said!

I can’t wait to play with your DK tank… Let’s see how quick you can get the mob off me… I will be blinking in, you will be pulling it away from me… it wont be so much a boss fight, as a dance between the DK and the Mage!

@xabbott: Very well said too.
I guess to clarify I was never suggesting one should do mediocre dps, but survive. Rather that the one should be playing what one wants while finding those last ounces of dps to squeeze out.

Now, tell me more about simulation craft.
I have been “using it”, and trying to then use the ratings to fill pawn and loot rank/wowhead.

I have seen over the last couple of weeks a couple of excellent posts by Locks and Druids on it’s use… but then it appears that there is some great supporting documentation on the simulation craft site.

Got some tips?
If they are too long, drop me a line with a post & I will post it up for you… I don’t think your “blog” is the normal full post variety… but I don’t want to take any credit away from you…

Your point about being a “spec” player is right on – I am actually an Arcane spec player. I understand that all the high-level theorycrafting points to fire/torment of the weak being the highest DPS spec, but I identify myself as an arcane mage, and as long as it’s viable I’m going to keep playing arcane, darn it!

So my point wasn’t so much that you should always try to squeeze out every drop of dps at the expense of playing the spec you like – it’s that if you’re in a situation where you know your DPS is sub-par and it has a chance to affect your status as a raider for your guild, then maybe consider a temporary switch to arcane; because, unlike fire, arcane allows you to put up numbers that are beyond your gear level (at least on short fights) without a whole lot of luck being involved.

[…] When does YOUR damage matter? By Karch Everything on this blog is meant to be very practical, because all it’s really concerned with is helping you do more damage – so my apologies if this topic is a little bit theoretical. It was inspired by an excellent post over at Gnomeaggeddon’s mage blog. […]

I started my mage life as POM/Fire mage, then when resilience came in a destroyed my life. I switched to frost.

I loved frost alot, but now with dual spec, best 1000 gold ever. I’m more valuable to my guild that goes beyond the pure dps.

Need help kiting zombies, and massive AOE for Gluth I’m there with Frost.

Need some DPS I’m there with the Arcane Spec.

As I learn the nuances of the spec, I become better as well, and what each fight needs. I think as mages sometimes we can squeeze more out of what we have, then going running for the flavor of the day.

@Prelimar: It’s always a pleasure.. FYI, I will be putting the call out next week for loyal readers like yourself to contribute a little something. You will have plenty of time… but either get ready, or avoid the blog for a month so you can feign ignorance ;-)

@Blake: “Sort-of followup” indeed… a great post and excellent continuation of this line of thought!

@theerivs: 1st up, I just stumbled across your blog (well, one of 3 apparently). I am going to pimp it right here for 2 very simple reasons (apart from the content.. which is another great reason).
1) The name of your blog just instantly struck a cord: High Latency Life
2) The title of one of your posts (Two Trailer Park Girls Go Around the Outside.) had me chuckling away… it would bring a smile to Malcolm McLaren’s face.

OK, so competition is one very good reason for increasing DPS… (or TPS). If you have it, you better beat it!

Dual Spec: I think this will actually start to play a greater role in pure DPS classes lives. Originally we just though of it as a novelty, or a way to have PvE/PvP specs. But it is becoming more apparent every day that it really allows you to have greater flexibility and utility even as a pure DPS class.

PS: Don’t tell Larisa, while she’s looking in the Fire utility cupboard… I might, just maybe, be looking in the Arcane cupboard… I can hear her giggle and cackle in glee even though we are basically at different (earth) poles.

We have a mage in our guild that would laugh it off that he spent more time dead than alive on trash fights. I finally had to kick him from a raid before he settled down and avoided dying on his first AoE crit.

[…] are my readers. The long time readers, the new readers. The prolific commenters (see Prelimar, told you I had some work for you), as well as the skulkers or occasional commenters (Jesta being on of the most recent of […]